Snap ballot on Siemens' BBCT offer

Union members in BBC Technology are being balloted on a new offer from the company hoping to take them over on September 1.

BECTU also plans to give formal notice of industrial action in July and August, which will be taken if members reject the Siemens offer in the postal ballot, as negotiators are recommending.

[At 1300 on July 22 BBC management were given notice of the following industrial action: Friday July 30/Saturday July 31 and Friday August 13/Saturday August 14. Precise times are due to be communicated to members some time before the days concerned.]

The union's decision to conduct a speedy consultative ballot, due to close on July 29, follows advice from lawyers that a new document from Siemens, outlining some guarantees for BBCT staff facing privatisation, would need to be put to a vote of members before planned industrial action could go ahead.

In an earlier ballot which closed on July 9, 84% of participants voted for industrial action over the terms, conditions, job security, and pensions which would apply if Siemens succeeds in buying BBC Technology and its 1400 staff, and the union began planning for strike action.

However, revised proposals covering many of the staffing issues which had caused concern among BBCT members were received by BECTU today, July 21, and the consultative ballot is intended to head off any claim that the union called strike action without Siemens' most recent offer being put to members.

BECTU's negotiating committee is recommending that members should reject Siemens' new package of proposals on the grounds that it falls well short of the union's demand that the company should offer a three-year period of stability, with no changes in contracts and no compulsory redundancies, as well as the creation of a pension scheme that matched exactly the retirement benefits on offer from the BBC.

The union is particularly concerned that Siemens has offered only a one-year guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, while forcing ex-BBCT staff to make a decision about joining the new pension scheme, and transferring their BBC pension into it, long before they know whether they have any future with their new employer.

Since talks began with the BBC on the privatisation plan, BECTU has forecast widespread job cuts once BBC Technology was sold, and Siemens confirmed shortly after being named as preferred bidder in early July that a staff "rationalisation" would take place some time after it took ownership of BBCT.

Although BECTU remains opposed to the sale of BBC Technology, negotiators have met with Siemens' managers in an effort to reach agreement on the treatment of staff if the sale goes ahead, and some guarantees of protection have been offered by the German-owned industrial giant.

But even the new staff package doesn't match the guarantees given to BBC staff in previous privatisation exercises, notably the property deal with Land Securities Trillium which offered a better pension deal to departing BBC staff. The union believes that a decisive rejection of the current Siemens package, followed by industrial action, is the only way to win better protection for BBC Technology staff.

BECTU is also calling for the September 1 target date for BBCT's sell-off to be postponed so that negotiations over staff issues are given enough time to reach an amicable conclusion.

The union, which is affiliated to the Labour Party, has been in contact throughout the last week with the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) whose Minister, Tessa Jowell, has the power to block the sell-off. Strong representations have been made about the haste with which the BBC is racing towards the September 1 deadline, and a DCMS response to this complaint was expected by the end of this week (July 23).